Parental Guidance

When his daughter goes away for work, a grandfather finds himself having to take care of his three grandkids using 21st century methods -- though he soon resorts to an old-school style of parenting.

For more about Parental Guidance and the Parental Guidance Blu-ray release, see Parental Guidance Blu-ray Review published by Casey Broadwater on April 1, 2013 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.5 out of 5.

Parental Guidance Blu-ray Review

Go to your room...and watch something besides this movie.

Released in theaters on December 25th, Parental Guidance was poised as last Christmas'
go-to we're done opening presents and we're bored family movie, opening alongside the decidedly less kid-friendly Django Unchained.
As these sorts of films usually go, it's more bland than bad, the sort of cinematic experience meant to be savored mindlessly after a brain-doping turkey
dinner and several slices of pie. So, yeah, if you're planning to watch Parental Guidance on Blu-ray, you might as well go ahead and pre-heat
the oven.

Starring Billy Crystal and Bette Midler—who play out-of-touch oldsters trying to keep up with their crazy, over-parented grandkids—the film is a pureed
blend of embarrassing sight-gags, this is how we raised children in my day squabbles, and oily sentimental pap. It goes down like a white bread
and mayonnaise sandwich followed by a glass of warm milk—it's tasteless and substanceless, sure, but it ain't gonna kill you. And it's weird, I know,
but some people like mayo and white bread sandwiches. To each his or her own.

Billy Crystal is Artie, the old-fashioned announcer for the minor league Fresno Grizzlies. On the last day of the season, however, his boss cans him for
basically being a relic who doesn't get social media, doesn't have apps or a favorite Angry Bird, and doesn't know a tweet from hashtag. His wife, Diane
(Bette Midler) thinks he should retire instead of looking for another job, but Artie doesn't want to be dragged around to Costco every day—or whatever
retired guys do with their wives—and he still has big dreams of being the voice of the San Francisco Giants.

Meanwhile, their daughter Alice (Marisa Tomei) lives across the country in a "prototype smart-home" developed by her husband Phil (Tom Everett
Scott) for his company, R-Life, with HAL9000-style artificial intelligence, automated toasters and coffee makers, the works. You can see where this is
going, right? The technology-challenged grandparents are going to come visit and find themselves thoroughly befuddled by the touch-screen tablets
and voice-activated software, stuff that's an everyday part of Alice and Phil's hectic, go-go-go lifestyle. But the generational disparities don't end there.

Alice's ideas about parenting—Phil is mainly just along for the ride—are a far cry from her own parents' laissez faire, oh, they'll grow out of it
attitude. She's a fierce helicopter mom, making sure her 12-year-old daughter Harper (Bailee Madison) diligently practices the violin, that shy middle
kid Turner (Joshua Rush) makes it to speech therapy class for his stutter, and that red-headed tyke Barker (Kyle Harrison Breitkopf) is allowed to
indulge his imaginary friend fantasies about a kangaroo named Carl. This is the sort of self esteem and wellness-obsessed family where the kids are
never given sugar and are told "think about the consequences" instead of a firm "no" when they misbehave.

When R-Life is nominated for a product-of-the-year award, Phil and Alice go out of town to celebrate—it's the first time they've been alone for five
years—and reluctantly leave the kids with grandma and pap, whom the carrot-haired Barker soon christens as "Fartie." Subsequently, the
anatomical/scatological humor rarely relents. Gramps gets thwacked in the crotch with a baseball bat in one scene and promptly pukes up a chili dog on
the face of the offending Little Leaguer. Later, trying to coax the constipated Barker into doing his business in a public restroom, Artie improvises a
song that goes, "Come out, come out, Mr. Doody." Oh, and how could I forget Barker pissing off the lip of a half-pipe at the X-Games, causing
skateboarding legend Tony Hawk—in the most regrettable cameo of his career—to botch a 900?

The episodic hijinks come one after another—the kids eat ice cream cake for the first time, watch Saw, disrupt a symphony—until the third
act, when the film decides to get all weepy on us, tidily resolving each of the children's various emotional dilemmas and delivering some
father/daughter healing for Artie and the frazzled Alice. The hope you have a tissue handy sentimentalism comes out of nowhere and resorts
to some cheaply manipulative tricks. I mean, how can you not get a little misty-eyed when a young stutterer gets up in front of a crowd and gives a
rousing, perfectly fluid rendition of the radio coverage from the final play of the 1951 Giants/Dodgers pennant playoff? You can bet Artie gets teary too.

The real problem with Parental Guidance is that it's just not funny when it means to be. Billy Crystal and Bette Midler practically jazz-hand
through their now-hammy schtick—including a shaky duet of "Who Wrote the Book of Love"—and the kids are the typically precocious movie brats.
The strange thing is that even at its most frantic, Parental Guidance feels sluggish. This is family comedy with its belt undone, reclining in a
La-Z-Boy and rubbing its stomach.

Parental Guidance was filmed predominantly on 35mm, with a few select scenes shot with the Panavision Genesis HD camera and—by the looks
of it, though I haven't verified—maybe a GoPro or two during the skateboarding sequence. All this transfers relatively well to Fox's 1080p/AVC Blu-ray
encode, which seems true to both the source materials and the film's generic family comedy visual aesthetic. The combination of a chunky film stock and
spherical lenses means that grain is quite pronounced, even in brighter scenes, which has the inherent effect of softening the image, leaving facial and
clothing textures looking a little muddled. Still, there's plenty of high definition detail here, and the thick grain is far better than the alternative—a
picture that's been smeared over with digital noise reduction and then artificially sharpened with edge enhancement. There are a few moments when
black levels get the best of shadow detail—see the screenshot of Artie in the public restroom with Barker—but otherwise, contrast is balanced and color is
as dense and vivid as it needs to be. I didn't spot any other notable compression or source issues besides some pixilation/jagginess during the few POV
skateboard shots. Overall, a suitable but short of impressive high definition picture.

Similarly, Parental Guidance features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that does its job but doesn't particularly exert any
special effort, which is fine considering this is a low-key family comedy. The rear speakers are only sparsely utilized for anything other than quiet
ambience—light room noise, raining falling, that sort of thing—with only one or two notable cross-channel effects, like the back-to-front plane engine
roar near the start of the film. Composer Marc Shaiman—Bette Midler's longtime producer/musical director—pads the onscreen action with a score that
cries "light hijinks," and the mix has a great sense of clarity, if lacking in engagement or dynamic breadth. Most importantly, dialogue is always clear and
easy to understand. The disc also includes an English descriptive audio track, Spanish and French Dolby Digital 5.1 dubs, and optional English SDH and
Spanish subtitles.

Think of Parental Guidance as Modern Family: The Movie—same generation gaps, same parenting disputes, same precocious kids—but
not nearly as funny or sharp or culturally astute. The fuddy-duddy film sits in that entertainment gray area between "not offensively bad" and "but not
really worth watching, either." It also proves definitively that present day Billy Crystal is far better presenting movie awards than appearing in movies
themselves. 20th Century Fox's Blu-ray release is nicely put together for this sort of film, but Parental Guidance would make a better Netflix
rental than a solid purchase.

Use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to agree or disagree that the title is similar to Parental Guidance. You can also suggest completely new similar titles to Parental Guidance in the search box below.

Similar titles suggested by members

Parental Guidance Blu-ray, News and Updates

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has officially announced and detailed its upcoming combo pack edition of Andy Fickman's comedy Parental Guidance (2012), starring Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and Marisa Tomei. The release will be available for purchase on March ...

You will get a notification at the top of the site as soon as the current price equals or falls below your price. You can also optionally receive an email notification (sent only once),
this is specified in your Site preferences under "My price tracker".

You can also get an instant mobile notification with our iPhone- or Android app. The apps are synchronized with your account at Blu-ray.com, so you only need to install the app and login with your regular username and password.